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Which phonetic alphabets represents the sound of 'u' in words like 'truck'? My real name includes written 'sam' but it is read as 'sum'. So I want to know what could I write between s _ m to make it clear?

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  • Thanks. By the way I am new to this site. Can you tell me why do people prefer to Add comment instead of Add Answer. Is it because some questions like these have short answers and short answers get you bad points?
    – user111950
    Mar 29, 2020 at 16:36
  • You took it wrong. I made an account on Stack Exchange recently. I really want to know why one doesn't add answer instead as that will get them more reputation points. Not that points matter to a person though.
    – user111950
    Mar 29, 2020 at 16:49
  • A "letter" or "character" is something like "a" or "ɐ" . They are not alphabets. An alphabet is a list of all the letters in a language. "abcdefghijklmopqrstuvwxyz" is one alphabet. Don't mix up "letter" and "alphabet".
    – James K
    Oct 24, 2020 at 7:12

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Which phonetic alphabets represents the sound of 'u' in words like 'truck'?

It varies from accent to accent.
It might be open-mid back unrounded vowel, represented by /ʌ/ or near-open central unrounded vowel, /ɐ/.
Most varieties of English use /ʌ/ (also called STRUT vowel) in the word 'truck' i.e. /trʌk/.
If your name rhymes with 'sum' then you could transcribe it [ˈsʌm] or [ˈsɐm]

Some other words that have /ʌ/ are luck, gut, cut, strut etc.

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    If you are in the United States, very few people will be familiar with the International Phonetic Alphabet, so /sʌm/ will not help people pronounce your name. It might be better to simply write (pronounced like "sum") after your name.
    – AndyB
    Oct 24, 2020 at 1:39
  • @AndyB: I assume you wanted to leave this comment on the question..?? I answered what was asked (.."phonetic symbol...")
    – Void
    Oct 24, 2020 at 4:02
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    Yes, I think your answer was excellent. But because the OP added "to make it clear", I thought it possible that they really wanted to know how best to communicate the pronunciation of their name to people they came in contact with. And the IPA might be useful in Europe, but less so in the US.
    – AndyB
    Oct 24, 2020 at 4:13

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